EDITORIAL POLICY & DISCLOSURE
Our editorial policy, and our relationship with the company behind this publication
TSUBAMEDIA is a publication devoted to edible bird’s nest, run by Japan Bansho Co., Ltd.
Japan Bansho handles edible bird’s nest as a business. It is involved in the working reality of this industry — raw material, manufacturing, quality control, research, and the production sites overseas.
We are not, therefore, a neutral third party.
That is precisely why we state the relationship rather than hide it. Telling you where we stand before telling you what we found is, we think, what honesty looks like here.
1 | We keep facts and our own opinions apart
When we cite research papers, statistics or material published by public bodies, we name the source as precisely as we can.
What research has confirmed. What is still unknown. And what we made of it. We take care not to blur the three together.
When we write about our own products, research or activities, we present them in a way that makes the relationship with the operating company visible.
Not pretending to be neutral, but being transparent.
That is where TSUBAMEDIA starts.
2 | We do not overstate
Edible bird’s nest is a food, not a medicine. When we introduce a research result, we do not carry it across as an effect of a product, or as an effect on the human body.
We also avoid the following kinds of expression, which can mislead a reader.
- Asserting a benefit or effect without evidence
- Medicinal claims such as “eat this and it will cure you”
- Stating an intake amount or duration without evidence
- Using personal testimony alone as evidence of an effect
- Superlatives with no objective basis — “world’s best”, “No.1”, “highest grade”
- Figures or assertions whose source cannot be checked
- Rankings that place other companies’ products in order
When we do not know, we say that we do not know.
3 | Not comparisons, but a yardstick you can use yourself
TSUBAMEDIA does not set out to conclude which particular product is best.
Instead we explain, carefully, what to look at when you choose edible bird’s nest.
Origin. How the raw material is managed. Harvesting and cleaning. Processing and manufacture. Quality testing. Traceability. How content is declared. Research data. And the relationship with the production area and its natural environment.
We explain what each of these means, and why it is worth checking.
What Japan Bansho itself does about those criteria is published in FROM BANSHO.
We hand you the material for a judgement.
What you choose is yours to decide.
4 | We say how far the research actually goes
Research comes in stages. Studies in cells. Studies in animals. Studies in people.
A single result cannot settle what something does in a human being.
So when we introduce a study, we make as clear as we can what that study shows — and what that study alone cannot show.
Our basic sources are peer-reviewed papers. Where we take up a conference presentation or work still in progress, we say plainly that it is still in progress.
Not making research look bigger than it is. Reporting where it currently stands.
5 | We look at the wildlife, the region, and the people
When we think about edible bird’s nest, we do not look only at composition and research.
The nests are made by swiftlets living in the wild. Around them there is an ecosystem, there are production areas, there are people who live there, and there is a culture and an industry handed down over a long time.
So we also ask: is this putting strain on nature? On the production area? On the people? And can this industry continue into the next generation?
We write about edible bird’s nest not only as something to consume, but as something that sits inside a relationship between nature and people.
6 | FROM BANSHO will not carry only the good news
In FROM BANSHO we report what Japan Bansho itself is doing — raw material, manufacturing, research, quality control, and activities overseas.
Not only the things that went well. Problems we found. Things that did not go the way we wanted. Things we had to put right. We will record those too, as far as we are able to publish them.
If we only lined up what suits us, there would be no point in claiming transparency.
Not “we were right all along”,
but “here is how we have dealt with it”.
7 | We correct our mistakes
We work to be as accurate as we can, but we cannot reduce the chance of error to zero.
When an error in published content is confirmed, we correct it promptly and update the date. Where the correction concerns an important matter of fact, we leave a note in the article saying so, as needed.
We also update as new research or new public information changes what can be said.
If you notice something in an article, or have new information, please tell the TSUBAMEDIA editorial team.
info@tsubamedia.net
In closing
What TSUBAMEDIA is trying to do is not to make edible bird’s nest look good.
It is to know it more deeply. To know the science. The places it comes from. The culture. The wildlife. The people involved. And to look not only at what is known, but at what is not yet known.
We handle edible bird’s nest as a business, and at the same time we are still learning.
So we go there, meet people, read the research, check things with our own eyes — and we report that process as well.
We do not pretend to be neutral.
We do not overstate.
We do not hide.
That is TSUBAMEDIA’s editorial policy.